“We are witnessing a counter-offensive of mysticism against science,” Eugène Berthelot wrote in 1895. The distinguished chemist was commenting on a transition in the prevailing philosophy and cultural values of late-nineteenth-century France. One hundred years after the Revolution, her colonial empire and industrial accomplishments had made an impressive showing at the Exposition Universelle of 1889 but the materialism that had enriched her was beginning to be questioned as its negative aspects became increasingly apparent. The struggle for wealth and power was evident everywhere. Politics were chaotic. Between 1873 and 1888, France had nineteen ministries, each lasting less than a year. The Daniel Wilson scandal and the rise of General Boulanger rocked the nation. France was divided by continuing conflicts between ministries, each lasting less than a year. The Daniel Wilson scandal and the rise of General Boulanger rocked the nation. France was divided by continuing conflicts between the Vatican and Paris. The disclosure of the bankruptcy of the Panama Canal Company revealed that company funds had been used to suborn government officials. This debacle encouraged anti-Semitism which reached its climax in the trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Political parties and factions of every hue combined and divided on every issue and sought to exploit each scandal to their advantage. Whether these were symptoms or the cause, it is true that, under her prosperous façade, France was suffering from “a widespread psychic malaise, a pessimism growing in part out of the unfulfilled promises of materialism.”Interest in traditional religion significantly increased toward the end of the century. So did the study of spiritualism and theosophy. In philosophy, the French developed a new interest in German thought. Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung was translated into French for the first time in 1886 and retranslated, in a larger edition, in 1889. Where Auguste Comte had stated that: “Our real business is to analyze accurately the circumstances of phenomena and to connect them by the natural relations of succession and resemblance,” Schopenhauer took a more mystical position. Of perception, Schopenhauer wrote: “. . . every work of art answers that question, every painting, every statue, every poem, every scene on the stage; music also answers it, and indeed more profoundly than all the rest, for in its language which is understood with absolute directness, but which is yet untranslatable into that of reason, the inner nature of all life and existence expresses itself.”A similar position was taken by Henri Bergson who published his Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience in 1889. In his writing, as well as in his teaching, Bergson developed his theory that the true nature of things can only be apprehended by intuition.The arts reflected this change by a new interest in veiled meanings and subtle allusions, dealing with emotions rather than with logic. This new current in the arts was much concerned with a mysterious inner nature of things which could not be rationally discovered but only dimly apprehended through the senses. This inner nature was often described in adjectives which suggested magic. The music of Richard Wagner was one of the first manifestations of the movement and the Revue wagnérienne attempted, from 1885 to 1889, to interpret his theories in terms of the other arts, particularly through the works of such men as Verlaine, Mallarmé, Huysmans and Odilon Redon. In describing the new poetry, Mallarmé described the movement as a whole.“To evoke the unmentioned object in a deliberate shadow by allusive, never direct words, that all amount to expressions of silence, is to attempt something that comes close to an act of creation: this act of creation achieves plausibility within the limits of the idea that the sorcerer of literature exclusively exploits, until he succeeds in bringing forth the semblance of an illusion. The verse is conceived as an incantation.”Such goals were a great change from those of literary realism. Writers like Daudet, Flaubert, the brother Goncourt, had attempted to present a “slice of life,”—realistic, nearly clinically objective descriptions of the human animal enmeshed in situations which seldom revealed in him either heroism or nobility. Within their self-chosen limitations, the realists relied for dramatic effect on their choice of anecdotes. They consequently preferred subjects which aroused in the reader the vicarious enjoyment of forbidden pleasures or the cynical recognition that this is, after all, the way the world is. The mysterious spiritual conflicts and concealed emotions of Maeterlinck's plays, the emphasis on the emotionally suggestive powers of sounds and rhythms by such poets as Rimbaud, had an entirely different orientation.The Symbolist writers were directly influenced by Charles Baudelaire. Writing on the annual Salon, in the June and July, 1859, issues of La Revue française, he said:“Line and color, both of them have the power to set one thinking and dreaming; the pleasures which spring from them are of different natures, but of a perfect equality and absolutely independent of the subject of the picture.”Naturally, such theories effected the visual arts as well. Painters at the end of the nineteenth century were becoming concerned with the evocative powers of color and form that had been described so much earlier by Baudelaire. In L'Art in 1880, David Sutter published an article entitled “Les Phénoménes de la vision” in which he proposed exact emotional equivalents for certain colors and forms. For instance, he wrote:“The vertical line is the line of nobility, of grandeur, of majesty, and of command.”“Red, the most powerful of colors, symbolized elevation, strength and command; lilac or violet represent coquetry, instability and weakness; blue is modesty and candor.”The predominant art movements of late-nineteenth-century France did not reflect this primary concern with expression through the properties of art itself. The traditional classicism of the academies was well represented by Adolphe Bouguereau who, besides expressing it visually, expressed the academic concept verbally. “There is no such thing as symbolic art, social art, religious art. There is only art as the representation of nature for any artist having the exclusive ideal to express the truth.” Bouguereau meant that the method is representation, not imitation, and that the truth is the ideal condition of objects restored to their perfect form.Contemporary critics recognized this distinction. At the Salon of 1889, Bouguereau's work was described as having a “faithful remembrance of classical masterpieces” as well as “graceful accuracy of drawing, suave elegance of expression. . . melting tenderness of color” and being the “very incarnation of steady work and calm conviction.” Georges Lafenestre, who wrote these words, reacted as warmly to the exhibition as a whole: “Everyone tries to find. . . an honest impression, conscientious observation, truthful record, and a wholesome and somber poetical feeling as a genuine outcome of the loving and patient study of living nature.” Personally, however, he preferred the Realists. In that, he paralleled popular opinion of the time.Gustave Courbet, the leader of the Realist school, attempted to present a “slice of life” in visual form. He considered his a democratic art and stated that, in opposition to the academies, he would paint goddesses only after he had been shown one. In his famous manifesto of 1861, he had written: “Especially the art of painting should consist solely of the representation of objects visible and tangible to the artist.” Although we may question whether he followed his theories as closely as he thought, official art circles of the sixties and seventies had no doubts. They rejected Courbet. By 1882, however, the situation had so changed that he was given a posthumous exhibition at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. A year earlier, the Luxembourg Museum had bought his L'Homme à la ceinture de cuir and the Louvre his Le Combat des cerfs.Also painting what they saw, but as they saw it, were the Impressionists who, from approximately 1870 onward, studied the effect of sunshine and atmospheric changes on natural objects. They did not attempt to correct nature. They took it as it was, without composing or perfecting. On the other hand, their view of nature was more subtle than that of Courbet. They might have argued with his contention that he did not amplify the expression of natural beauty. Vision is selective. It cannot normally see so many objects with such equal clarity as Courbet's canvases show. The Impressionists, by considering the effects of human vision as well as the natural changes of the atmosphere, presented the world as it appeared to them.Maurice Denis, Paul Sérusier, Edouard Vuillard and Karl-Xavier Roussel came of age in this cultural milieu. As students at the Lycée Condorcet, they had become aware of the new mystical movement in the arts. Students at this Parisian day school customarily attended the theater, visited the galleries and read the latest poetry and novels. Thus they became educated as well in their contemporary culture. Thadée Natanson and Aurélien Lugné-Poë, who were, like the Nabis, to contribute to the new movement, were also graduates of this extraordinary school.With such backgrounds and interests, it is not surprising that Denis, Sérusier, Vuillard and Roussel were dissatisfied with the instruction they received as beginning art students at the Académie Julian in 1888, a school which specialized in preparing students for the entrance examinations of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Although Bouguereau and Lefebvre occasionally gave critiques, students were instructed to try to achieve realism and to “copy stupidly” from nature. Imbued by the desire to express their own thoughts and emotions, the four young men rejected Realism, and Impressionism which they considered only another version of it. Except for the fact that they observed that painters like Bouguereau selected only certain elements from nature and then changed them to fit the compositional requirements of their work, the young painters rejected the academic tradition as well. They sought for a way to follow the Symbolist movement by expressing through the properties of the work of art itself—texture, color and form—their own personalities and thoughts. At first, they had no example to follow.Sérusier found their guide during the summer of 1888 when he met Gauguin at Pont-Aven. At first, Sérusier had been repelled by the rowdiness of Gauguin and his followers but, on the last day of Sérusier's stay in Pont-Aven, Emile Bernard introduced the young painter to Gauguin. As Agnés Humbert describes it in her book, Les Nabis et leur époque:“Gauguin suggested a painting session in the open air. Quickly Sérusier prepared, bringing his palette, his color, his brushes, and the top of a cigar box. After setting up in the Bois d'Amour, the master asked him some questions:
‘What color do you see in a tree?’
‘Yellow.’
‘All right, use your most beautiful yellow.’
‘What about the earth?’
‘Red.’
‘Use your best red. . .’
“Into a design resembling a piece of copper prepared for cloisonné, Sérusier laid the pure colors that Gauguin dictated. Thus Sérusier received the revelation.”A simplified landscape, this painting consists of a series of overlapping planes parallel to the picture plane. The colors are bright, pure and unmodulated. Natural forms are recognizable but there is no attempt to imitate nature. Some of the trees, for instance, are vermilion. This landscape, characteristically named The Talisman, and the theories of Gauguin as interpreted by Sérusier, were the center around which the Nabis formed. Their title—Hebrew for “prophet”—was given them by their friend, the poet Henri Cazalis. Although there were no master-pupil relationships, Denis and Sérusier were the leaders of the group and they attracted other young men who were interested in intellectual discussions and were seeking new ways of expression. Paul Ranson, Pierre Bonnard and Henri-Gabriel Ibels were among the first members. Edouard Vuillard and Karl-Xavier Roussel joined later and, from time to time, other artists like Jan Verkade and Aristide Maillol, took part in their dinners, discussions and exhibitions. There was no official designation of membership but an artist can be adjudged a Nabi because of frequent attendance at the dinners and participation in group projects.Their dinners occurred at fairly regular monthly intervals from 1888 until 1896. They began when the presiding Nabi, raising a staff which resembled a bishop's crozier, intoned:“Sounds, colors, and words have a miraculously expressive power beyond all representation and even beyond the literal meaning of the words.”Discussions at these dinners at the Os à Moelle were not confined exclusively to the visual arts but ranged over many subjects. Musicians, philosophers, writers and dramatists were often invited to participate. Many of these were introduced to the group by Paul Ranson at whose studio the group began to hold additional Saturday meetings. A very frequent visitor to both the dinners and to Ranson's studio was Lugné-Poë who served as a drama critic on several Parisian papers and who, for a time, shared a studio with Bonnard, Vuillard and Maurice Denis. Paul Gauguin was a frequent visitor at these Saturday meetings in Ranson's studio.In May, 1891, the Nabis put on a review at the Vaudeville in Paris to raise money for Gauguin and Verlaine. This consisted of poems and plays by Verlaine, Morice, Maeterlinck and Mendès. The evening was not a financial success. The following December, at Lugné-Poë Théâtre-Libre, the Nabis presented another benefit. For this, Ibels, Denis and Sérusier painted sets for plays by Rémy de Gourmont and by Maeterlinck. Readings were also given of advanced poetry, such as a version of the “Song of Songs” during which perfumes appropriate to the different verses were released.Although he was their first guide, Gauguin was not the Nabis' only one. Most congenial to them was Gauguin's statement that:“There is an impression resulting from any certain arrangement of colors, lights and shadows. It is called the music of the picture. Even before knowing what the subject is. . . you are struck by this emotion (which) goes to the most intimate part of the soul.”However, the Nabis continued to study and observe and, from their knowledge of the other arts, and the theories and works of other artists, they developed their own theories and styles.Of particular interest to them were the Italian primitives. Denis, who was always deeply religious, had a personal interest in Fra Angelico and attempted to pattern his life after the artist-monk. The other Nabis admired the expressiveness and symbolic nature of Italian art before Raphael. Japanese block prints, with their flat areas and decorative stylization, were also studied by them. The vigorous brush stroke and clear expression of the medium that they saw in an occasional painting by Van Gogh impressed them. The mystery and subtlety of Odilon Redon appeared to them to express visually Mallarmé's insistence on rien que la nuance. “I have yielded to secret laws which have let me to fashion things into which I have put my whole soul” Redon wrote. Puvis de Chavannes, whose hemicycle in the Sorbonne was studied by the Nabis, also rejected realism and said “for every clear idea a plastic thought exists to translate it.” The Nabis admired his simplification and decorative treatment of large, flat areas. Later in their development the Nabis discovered Cézanne but Gauguin's works and theories were, from the beginning, the source of their principal knowledge of him.Nabi theories were first published in the article by Maurice Denis which appeared in the August, 1890, issues of Art et critique. Denis' first paragraph reveals the Nabis' de-emphasis of subject mater in favor of greater consideration of the work of art itself.“Remember that a picture—before being a warhorse, a nude, or any other anecdote—is essentially a flat surface covered with colors arranged in a certain order.”Lines and colors, Denis wrote, should be the principal means of expression in a painting. Through these, the work of art speaks directly to the soul of the viewer. The artist should select from nature only those elements which contribute to the effect he wishes to create. These elements, once selected, could then be altered as the composition required.The article was entitled Définition du néo-traditionnisme and, clearly, the concept of borrowing from nature only certain elements and then arranging these as the artist desired, owed much to the traditions of the academies. Certainly this concept was opposed to the theories of the Realists and the Impressionists. However, the elements which the Nabis chose and the method in which they altered them, had little in common with the classical tradition. Where the classicists “corrected nature” and sought to create ideal form, the Nabis sought expression alone.From today's point of view, we would expect these theories to result in the abstract art we know. In fact, the most abstract of the Nabi paintings was The Talisman. The revolutionary nature of this painting is apparent when it is compared to a work by Bouguereau, Monet, or Courbet. Vuillard's Portrait of Lugné-Poë of 1891, with its flatness and emphatic brush strokes, is typical of the Nabi style. Except for the shadowed face, there is very little modeling in this painting. It consists primarily of simple, uncomplicated forms. Concentration and effort are suggested by sharp angles. These lines and forms focus attention on the cramped hands of the playwright.Denis' Noli me Tangere of 1894 has the same characteristic flatness and striated texture of the preceding painting. It suggests the influence of Gauguin in the arabesques of the tree branches in the upper left. The figure of Christ has much affinity to the work of Fra Angelico and the subject itself is typical of Denis.Most of the Nabis exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1890. Their lack of critical success and of public acceptance was uniform. The following year, Le Barc de Boutteville hung their work in his gallery and continued to show it despite public apathy. Thadée Natanson's Revue blanche began to feature their lithographs, most frequently during the years 1893 and 1894. Ambroise Vollard handled some Nabi work but he found buyers only for Denis' paintings. Nevertheless, Vollard published lithographs by Bonnard, Vuillard, and Roussel.Although these lithographs did not sell then, they are highly valued today. The influence of the Japanese print is apparent in their simple masses and general flatness. They also illustrate the Nabis' concern with emphasizing the medium itself and creating an atmosphere rather than an exact description.By, 1896, the Nabis had dissolved as a group and no longer met regularly. Individual members had developed in their own directions although they continued to be tied together by friendships which would last all their lives. Paul Sérusier, who had returned to Pont-Aven during the summers of 1889 and 1890, founded a school there in 1891. Bonnard and Vuillard soon tired of theories and devoted themselves to giving the effect of spontaneity to their work. Roussel began painting nymphs in landscapes permeated with a golden haze.While Bonnard, Vuillard and Roussel were developing their own individual styles, Maurice Denis had begun to decry individualism. He began to feel that the Nabi theories and experiments had helped to encourage what he now called “capricious art.” Denis changed his mind during a stay in Rome in the spring of 1898 when, under the guidance of André Gide, he reached a new appreciation for classic art. After his return to Paris, Denis published his “Les Arts à Rome ou la méthode classique,” a mea culpa in which he so modified his earlier theories as to bring them well within the tradition of academic classicism.“The classic artists is not content with appearance or with psychological suggestion, and the definition of a flat surface doesn't satisfy him: he does not make a tabula rasa of the intelligence which receives sensations (which was a fault of our system): he is an idealist, he has a canon, it could be an individual canon. Each great classic artist has several of them.”Writing further about the now-lamented effect of the Nabis' theories, Denis said:“I will explain how such a rigorous aesthetic system gave way to the most capricious art that ever existed. In effect, everything became, according to the hour and the weather, a motif for painting. Every vision gave rise to an emotion and therefore could be represented by a diagram which would be perfect if it reproduced and called forth in a viewer of the work thus created this very same emotion.”Although Denis lamented it, the Nabis, by their theories and works, helped to free art from the necessity to reproduce nature. Their emphasis on communication through the properties of the work itself, rather than through subject matter, contributed to the development of non-representational art. They were the forerunners of the Cubists and the Fauves, and of the Abstractionists of our own time.Chronology1888
SEPTEMBER, Paul Sérusier met Paul Gauguin at Pont-Aven, Brittany, and painted, under Gauguin's direction, a landscape of the Bois d'Amour which was later called The Talisman. NOVEMBER, after returning to Paris, Paul Sérusier showed The Talisman to his fellow students at the Académie Julian, Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Henri-Gabriel Ibels, and Paul Ranson. With two friends from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Edouard Vuillard and Karl-Xavier Roussel, the young painters formed a group which Henri Cazalis, a poet and scholar of Hebrew, termed Nabis—“prophets” in Hebrew. The first of their monthly dinners was held at the Os à Moelle restaurant.1889
JUNE, Maurice Denis and Emile Bernard exhibited, with Paul Gauguin and others, in the Exposition des Peintres Symbolistes et Synthétistes at the Café Volpini near the grounds of the Exposition Universelle in Paris.OCTOBER, Paul Sérusier visited Gauguin at Le Pouldu, Brittany.1890
Besides their monthly dinners, the Nabis began to meet every Saturday at the studio of Paul Ranson at which Gauguin was present several times. The Nabis also began to know contemporary composers like Claude Terrasse and Ernest Chausson.APRIL, an exhibition of Japanese art at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts had a strong effect on the Nabis.AUGUST, Maurice Denis' article, “Définition du néo-traditionnisme,” published in Art et Critique.NOVEMBER, Bonnard, Ibels an Sérusier painted scenery and designed costumes for Paul Fort's Théâtre d'Art, the first of many theatrical projects by the Nabis.1891
During this year, Bonnard, Denis, Vuillard and Aurélien Lugné-Poë, a young drama critic who had been a classmate of theirs at the Lyceé Condorcet, shared a studio in Montmartre. Bonnard failed his law examinations and sold his first poster.
The first group exhibition of the Nabis took place at the Galerie Le Barc de Boutteville in Paris.MARCH, Albert Aurier's article, “Le Symbolisme en peinture,” published in Mercure de France.
The Nabis attended a banquet for Gauguin on the twenty-third of this month.APRIL, Sérusier and Verkade traveled in Brittany until October, staying briefly at Pont-Aven, Huelgoat and Le Pouldu.
Bonnard, Denis, Ibels and Vallotton exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants.MAY, the Nabis staged a benefit for Gauguin and Paul Verlaine at the Vaudeville, Paris.OCTOBER, The Revue Blanche, the first journal to be favorable to the Nabis, founded by the Natanson brothers.DECEMBER, the Nabis staged a second benefit for Gauguin, this time at the Théâtre-Libre of Lugné-Poë.1892
Georges Lacombe, Jozsef Rippl-Ronaï and Félix Vallotton joined the Nabis.FEBRUARY, Maurice Denis exhibited with the Twenty, Brussels.MARCH, Bonnard, Denis, Ibels, Ranson and Verkade exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants.APRIL, Sérusier went to Brittany where he stayed at Pont-Aven and later at Huelgoat until September.1893
Aristide Maillol was introduced to the Nabis during this year.FEBRUARY, Denis again exhibited with the Twenty, Brussels.MARCH, Bonnard, Denis, Ibels, Ranson and Vallotton exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants.MAY, the Maison de l'Oeuvre, founded by Lugné-Poë, Vuillard and Camille Mauclair, presented Maurice Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande.MAY, André Gide's Voyage d'Urien, illustrated by Denis, published.1894
Bonnard made his Revue Blanche poster during this year and Maillol his first wood sculptures.MARCH, Odilon Redon exhibited at Durand-Ruel, Paris.APRIL, Roussel's pastels and drawings exhibited in the offices of the Revue Blanche.MAY, the Nabis exhibited as a group in the Paris offices of the Dép'che de Toulouse. JUNE, Jan Verkade became a novice in the Benedictine monastery at Beuron, Germany.1895
APRIL, Denis, Maillol and Ranson exhibited at the annual Salon. Also exhibited was Tiffany stained glass design by Ranson, Bonnard, Roussel, Ibels, Vuillard, Denis, Vallotton and Sérusier.NOVEMBER, more than one hundred paintings by Paul Cézanne exhibited by Ambroise Vollard.1896
JANUARY, Bonnard exhibited at Durand-Ruel, Paris.FEBRUARY, Bonnard, Vuillard and Maillol exhibited at the Salon de la Libre Esthétique in Brussels.OCTOBER, Rémy de Gourmont's Livre des Masques, with illustrations by Felix Vallotton, published.DECEMBER, first performance of Uba Roy by Alfred Jarry, with music by Claude Terrasse and sets by Sérusier and Bonnard.1897
APRIL, Bonnard, Denis, Ibels, Lacombe, Ranson, Roussel, Sérusier, Vallotton and Vuillard exhibited together by Vollard.1898
Denis visited Rome and, under the guidance of André Gide, came to appreciate classic art. Denis published “Les Arts à Rome ou la méthode classique” in Le Spectateur catholique after his return to Paris.1899
APRIL, Vollard exhibited lithographs by Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis and Odilon Redon.MAY, Denis, Maillol and Ranson exhibited in the annual Salon. Vuillard, Vallotton, Denis, Ibels, Sérusier exhibited at the Galeries Durand-Ruel, Paris.JUNE, Rippl-Ronaï exhibited at the Galerie Bernheim, Paris.1900
APRIL, Bonnard, Denis, Ibels, Maillol, Ranson, Roussel, Sérusier, Vallotton and Vuillard exhibited at the Galerie Bernheim Jeune, Paris.SEPTEMBER, Paul Verlaine's Parallélement, with illustrations by Bonnard, published by Ambroise Vollard.This section is largely adapted from Bernard Dorival and Agnés Humbert, BONNARD, VUILLARD ET LES NABIS, Paris, Editions des Musées nationaux, 1955.Referenced Works of Art

Paul Sérusier, French, 1863-1927. Landscape of the Bois d'Armour, 1888. Oil on wood, 10 5/8” x 8 5/8”. Private collection, France.Painted under the direction of Gauguin, The Talisman was of central importance in the formation of the Nabis. (Not included in this exhibition).

Vuillard enhanced his decorative purpose in painting the Place St. Augustin by using a large canvas. Although he saw the scene with a startlingly intimate eye, Vuillard seems to have been withdrawn, curiously uninvolved in the world around him.The world of Vuillard is safe and sure, nothing violent or upsetting occurs, most everything is as static and permanent as the building or trees. “Here he presents the quiet, ordinary relationships of the animate and the inanimate, the fusion of person and thing until both become one, and every shape, every color, every accent merges into a sustained tapestry-like rhythm comparable to the continuum of sound in a passage of Wagner or Debussy.”1 The artist evoked an era that was about to end. There is nothing of the tumult that was about to burst on the world in this mise-en-scène of the everyday, undramatic incidents of a Parisian square.Vuillard painted another view of the Place St. Augustin during this time which contains a number of the same features but seen from a different position.Endnotes

The right-hand half of a pair of decorations painted by Vuillard for Dr. Vaquez in 1912-1913; shows the junction of the Boulevard Haussmann and Boulevard Malesherbes at the Place St. Augustin as seen from a café at the Rue de la Pépinière